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Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

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Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#91

Post by II2II »

zahlman wrote: post #35
edm0nd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that Captain Planet was straight up created to be pro environmentalist and anti-oil propaganda? >Captain Planet and the Planeteers (1990–1996) was a pioneering animated series designed by Ted Turner and producer Barbara Pyle as environmental, pro-social "edutainment" to influence children towards ecological activism. It aimed to combat pollution and encourage environmental stewardship, often using over-t…

> Did you know that Captain Planet was straight up created to be pro environmentalist and anti-oil propaganda? Well, yes, it isn't subtle. It turns out that some propaganda is just correct , however.

Captain Planet always bothered me as a kid, even though I was (and continue to be) supportive of environmental protection. There was too much evil for the sake of evil. People don't destroy the environment because they want to. The destroy it because they don't care. They don't care because they are driven by greed, or some other motivation that is ultimately damaging to the environment, society, and civilization.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#92

Post by danlitt »

UltraSane wrote: post #22
russdill wrote: post #6

Hopefully next we can help fix mercury in fish, the number one contributor right now is burning coal. Seems like it would be a easy decision.

We could have and should have replaced all coal with nuclear but no, we couldn't do that.

It could have been replaced by almost anything, there is nothing particularly special about nuclear in this context (except its extremely high price).

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#93

Post by buildsjets »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #69
lenerdenator wrote: post #37

I really want to see elimination of lead (projectiles, lead styphnate primers, etc.) in firearms next. When I go to the range, every once in a while, I'll see one of the older marksmen who's there with his squirrel hunting rifle, chambered in .22 LR. I've noticed that he seems to have a tremor in his hands when he's loading his magazines. Essential tremor is linked to lead exposure [0] Most .22 LR projectiles are eit…

Why would lead be in the gunsmoke? Everything leaded should be coming out the business end of the firearm, and it should be coming out with some gusto.

Are you proposing that the base of the bullet which is exposed to the burning propellant magically remains at room temperature, and none of the lead in the base of the bullet is vaporized? What about the process of forcing the projectile into the barrel's spiral grooves at very high speed, leaving grooves in the side of the bullet. Where do you suppose that displaced and/or vaporized material ends up? What about the lead styphante that is combusted in the primer? I am not aware of any firearm that has a muzzle filter that removes primer residue from the combusted gunsmoke.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#94

Post by breakyerself »

nxm wrote: post #62
FatherOfCurses wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be uncontroversial that introducing shit into an environment where it doesn't belong is a bad idea, yet many people remain unconvinced that dumping tons of carbon dioxide a year into the atmosphere or tons of fertilizer by-products into the oceans is a bad idea.

It's less that but rather the hypocrisy of promoting burdensome regulations and bans implemented in one county (e.g. Germany) which hurts domestic industry and raises costs for its citizens, all while being silent on countries like China and India continuing to massively build more and more coal fired power plants

1. Germany industrialized 100 years before China. It's been burning large quantities of coal for far longer.

2. Germany or at least the EU can and should impose a carbon fee on imports related to a given nations carbon emissions/reductions.

3. Economically transitioning to renewables is better for a nations economy than continuing to burn fossil fuels anyway. Renewables are cheaper.

Pointing to another bad actor as an excuse to continue to be a bad actor we learn is not a moral position somewhere around 5 years old.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#95

Post by ipdashc »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #42
epistasis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal is mostly sticking around in the US because of federal overreach to keep unprofitable and ancient coal generators going long after anybody wants to pay for the high maintenance. Last week, a Colorado utility was "respectfully" asking to be able to close a plant: > TTri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a “respectful” but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration orde…

> There is no technical or economic reason to want coal power today. A quick look at the PJM interconnect data would disagree with you. About a quarter of the live power is coal. https://www.pjm.com/markets-and-operations.aspx That serves 65+ Million people in the north east and is keeping them from dying of cold this past week, including today (Temp outside in the mid-hudson valley is 15F / -9C), and overnight will…

PJM probably isn't a great example, it's been famously slow to approve new generation, hasn't it? And the rates aren't exactly super cheap.

We shouldn't get rid of coal without having something to replace it (ideally nuclear/solar/wind, but realistically probably gas), but I think the point was just that nobody would build a new coal plant today or keep them running for longer than they need to. They're inefficient and fairly expensive.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#96

Post by Hikikomori »

throwway120385 wrote: post #31
cfiggers wrote: post #28

In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated. Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be force…

It's really easy to sit and demand evidence before regulating something. But consider that if we waited for hard evidence to accumulate before banning lead in gasoline, we likely never would have banned it because the hard evidence wouldn't exist. I also don't agree on the principle that regulations are "harmful" or "helpful." Rather, you have to define who the regulation harms, and who it helps. For example antitrus…

>It's really easy to sit and demand evidence before regulating something. But consider that if we waited for hard evidence to accumulate before banning lead in gasoline, we likely never would have banned it because the hard evidence wouldn't exist.

We already knew lead was toxic before we started putting it in gasoline. Even the guy that invented it got sick from exposure and people died from exposure in their plants in the first years of operation. The problem is that we somehow require evidence that something is unsafe but don't require any evidence that its safe in the first place.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#97

Post by Cerium »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #81
empyrrhicist wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the price of gas starts to remotely reflect the medium to long term costs of climate change I basically always celebrate anything that increases gas or carbon-based energy prices. Like, it sucks... but there's lots of data that consumers respond to these prices in their choices. The way I think about it, the entirety of global civilization is massively, massively subsidizing carbon emission.

Do you know of any research or calculations of what that number ought to be?

If you wanted to pay for direct air capture of CO2 to directly "undo" your climate effect of driving, the cost would currently be about $6 per gallon. Price comes from [1], found [2] looking for a second opinion on current direct air capture cost.

[1] https://theclimatecapitalist.com/articles/gas-should-cost-13... [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/phildeluna/2024/11/29/will-dire...

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#98

Post by tclancy »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #42
epistasis wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coal is mostly sticking around in the US because of federal overreach to keep unprofitable and ancient coal generators going long after anybody wants to pay for the high maintenance. Last week, a Colorado utility was "respectfully" asking to be able to close a plant: > TTri-State Generation and partner Platte River Power Authority had a “respectful” but emphatic response late Thursday to the Trump administration orde…

> There is no technical or economic reason to want coal power today. A quick look at the PJM interconnect data would disagree with you. About a quarter of the live power is coal. https://www.pjm.com/markets-and-operations.aspx That serves 65+ Million people in the north east and is keeping them from dying of cold this past week, including today (Temp outside in the mid-hudson valley is 15F / -9C), and overnight will…

As much as it is fun to imagine you believing the false dilemma you've presented, I don't think the OP was suggesting not providing another option.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#99

Post by davidw »

breakyerself wrote: post #86
cfiggers wrote: post #28

In my opinion it is obvious and should be uncontroversial that some environmental regulations work and are great and should if anything be reinforced, while other environmental regulations do more harm than good and need to be reigned in or eliminated. Turning "environmental regulation" into a unified bloc that must be either supported or opposed in totality is a manipulative political maneuver and it should be force…

Almost every environmental regulation has come after it was already shown that there was some harm that needed to be mitigated. The worst environmental crisis in human history is going largely unchecked. I find it hard to take seriously any argument that environmental regulation has gone too far as opposed to not nearly far enough. If there's a specific regulation that can be shown to be doing more harm than good I'm…

There's certainly some "environmentalism" out there that's using the banner of the environment for other ends.

Here's one example: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-03-02/california-...

I mostly agree with you, but it is worth paying attention to the details.

Re: Banning lead in gas worked. The proof is in our hair

#100

Post by zug_zug »

rayiner wrote: post #74
jhallenworld wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lead helped fuel company profits because it was cheaper than the other anti-knock additives, like ethanol.

In an industry where everyone sells a completely fungible product such cost savings generally are passed on to consumers. Oil companies can profit in the short term due to fluctuations in the price of oil and things like that, but not from something like lead additives, which everyone had been using for decades.

I think you're missing the point -- the point is that gasoline companies KNEW ABOUT alternative lead-free substitutes for anti-knock (such as ethanol) and chose lead because they perceived it was less profitable. [1] Specifically because ethanol wasn't patentable and TEL was, and ultimately it WAS patented.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/leaded-gas-poison-...

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